The Problem Of Politics

OK y’all, put on your thinking caps ‘cause Bubbie’s gonna take y’all into the deep end. Remember when your teacher would tell you to put on your thinking caps when she wanted us to really pay attention? She was forewarning us that she was about to lay something on us that we’d have to think on for ourselves, lest we sit there with blank stares, some a sponge and some a brick wall. When little Bubbie heard his teacher say that, he’d get lost in his imagination thinking about his thinking cap, what it looks like, what he looks like wearing it, and miss the dang lesson! But that’s a story for another day...

OK, one more aside before we dive in; one reason I love hanging out with Uncle Bubba is because he’s so easy going. He’s kind and thoughtfully quiet. When he has something to say he can be quick with a quip yet one gets the impression that he chooses his words carefully. Hanging out with Uncle Bubba is easy. He’s fun, he’s interesting, and seemingly simple. Yet if you want to talk about meaningful things you’ll find no more willing participant. The following is one such encounter:

The problem of politics is that it’s a hypocritical process of duality. To explain the basis of this postulation, let’s build a computer. The computer, arguably the most powerful and world transforming technology operates on a binary number system that dates back to the I Ching from the 9th century BC in China. It is based on Taoist duality of yin and yang and represents numeric values using two different symbols: typically 0 and 1. So our computer looks at everything as a 0 or a 1, no matter what data we put into it, or that it spits back out to us it's innards are all zeros and ones. This basis of yin and yang, or to quote the philosopher Alan Watts, can be interpreted as “Is you is, or is you ain’t?” In other words, if something is a zero, then its not a one, and if something is a one then it’s not a zero. We can transpose that into all areas of life, for instance if you are alive then you are not dead, or if a statement is a truth then it is not a lie.

What is truth? For starters, the correspondence theory of truth is often traced back to Aristotle’s well-known definition of truth (Metaphysics 1011b25): “To say of what is that it is not, or of what is not that it is, is false, while to say of what is that it is, and of what is not that it is not, is true”—but virtually identical formulations can be found in Plato (Cratylus 385b2, Sophist 263b). Confusing, huh? Bubbie prefers the summary of the correspondence theory of truth provided by English philosopher and physician, John Locke: the truth is that which corresponds to reality. Now obviously reality is subjective because two people can share the same experience and perceive separate realities. This verifies the existence of God due to the fact that we've needed His higher truth to survive. His truth is the Word while man-made reality is fickle and ever-changing but God's reality has been consistent since the dawn of time. Older, smarter folks than us hillbillies knew this and that's why our country was founded on Godly principles: In God We Trust. (Literally stated in binary code: 010010010110111000100000011001110110111101100100001000000111011101100101001000000111010001110010011101010111001101110100)

This is also why politics is a dirty business, because it is always trying to be a zero and a one at the same time and it is a man-made religion. And We The People cry out for a good person to run for office when by the very nature of the office is to conduct hypocrisy. The forefathers knew it. That's why they designed the system with three branches of government, a construct of checks and balances. They tried but perhaps trusting our corrupt human soul is just too much for the system to bear, after all look at the centuries of human struggle and corruption in the Bible; and yet what lesson is ever learned? Each party speaks the truth as they believe it and because of the duality of politics it is often the same truth spoken from opposing sides. But we realize that conformity to a party is a compromise of one's own personal truth and that cannot be avoided in a society. So we muddle on, sitting on our butt and complaining about how someone should really do something.

In Bubbie's view, what can y'all do to remedy the problem of politics but take care of your piece? Do your part by first carrying personal integrity in your heart. Look after your own place and see how the yin and yang is operating in your own life. Don't worry about the truths of others but only your truth first. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Speak what you think today in hard words and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said today.” The objective is to improve your life and the lives of others through association. Bubbie rocked back in his chair and sipped from his glass with a wry look and we laughed as he sang his final comment on the topic... Soldier on lest we befall the fate warned by Michael Jackson's mother who always told him, "And be careful of what you do 'cause the lie becomes the truth."(Billy Jean)

Redneck Boating

Uncle Bubba and Sweet Pea decided to do a little redneck boating for some weekend relaxation. It was a typical hot and sunny Saturday in the south and everyone with a boat and some free time was at the river. The coolers were full and the radios speakers crackled to the edge of distorting. At once anyone can hear old country, new country, classic rock, and some kinda hippity-hop music. And as the morning beers lead to afternoon cold ones the volume know gets twisted up on the radio and so does the gossip and hollering. Men stand waste deep in the water with their great beer bellies glowing white like grotesque, untimely full moons and fluffy ladies in bikinis float on rafts in small flotillas, gossiping about things that should never even be whispered in private. Uncle Bubba and Sweet Pea were in the thick of it, staying cool in the water and appreciating the clean air when it came as the ether is often thick with acrid boat engine exhaust; that oily smoke lingers in blue clouds atop the green waters. Boats pass by and the captains casually juggle the wheel and their beer bottle as they navigate between the legions of little kids swimming like a truckload of fishing bobbers that had been thrown out into the water. Boat props and mindless little kids is a dangerous ballet that somehow pans out.

As Uncle Bubba floated in the water, his mind nearly turned off save one woman that could be heard talking over all the commotion. Her speaking voice was so loud that when he looked over in her direction he noticed that she wasn’t even facing him and he could still hear every word. Try as he might to not listen, he still overheard her. She sat on a raft with a beer in her hand and talked to anyone in her party that would listen. There was a senior, senior, cotton-topped couple on the boat and little kids jumping in and out of the water off of the back of the boat. She regaled the wide-eyed seniors with story after story of their boating adventures. It amazed him and stunned him in that she was probably around 50 years old and yet she used the F-bomb like a southern baptist preacher uses Amen. As Bubbie heard her speak explicitly of bodily functions, the female anatomy and various other unmentionable things, he tried to image hearing these now common things back when he was a kid. Did people always talk like this and he was innocuous? Perhaps, but it doesn’t seem like it. He recalls the adults of his youth being more refined and concerned about courtesy, especially in public. He recalls people reprimanding others who might be “out of line” in their language that, “Hey, there’s women and children around.” He asked Sweet Pea if she recalled things the same way and she said that she pretty much did. Then Bubbie mentioned more evidence to his theory of a more orthodox era in that the songs that he and Sweet Pea used to listen to when they were young were apt to hint of sexual innuendo but blatant referral just wasn’t allowed, not by the F.C.C. or by society. But now, song lyrics can be descriptively pornographic and you deny a persons civil rights to ask them to turn it down, let alone off.

Sweet Pea and Uncle Bubba know that it’s just the way that it is when you’re redneck boating. Folks will be loud, buzzed, and letting it all hang out. Many of these folks are also hardworking slaves of the general workforce that make up a community; heck, Bubbie’s one of them. They work hard and play hard. They’re victims of pride and social standings, yet in Bubbie’s view a little more class and a little less crass would make things more enjoyable for everyone.

Trial By Bomb

Uncle Bubba has unwittingly created a self-imposed exile from current affairs due to his interest in things that don’t connect to, well, social media and the use of devices that are used to media socialize. Sure, he has an iPhone, a computer, and a TV, but the way in which he interacts with them determines his social fate. As I happened to discover in speaking to him recently, the way that he has chosen to use, and not use the devices has also determined the quality of life that I think I envy. He’s quite unaffected by current events and he’s also, maybe unremarkably, happy. However, let me backtrack to bring you up to speed.

Dallas police deliberately used a bomb to kill a man! Deliberately! A bomb! They thought it through and decided to blow the dude up. Uncle Bubba was made aware of this while passing by a TV in a restaurant and he stood in shock, not even fighting to hide his mind being blown with his mouth open wide and staring blankly around the room. He searched for other faces of kindred shock but found none. It had been a least a week since the event had happened, an eternity in today’s span of attention but this was the first that Bubbie had heard of it. He struggled to gather his thoughts and wondered if there was any outrage to this unthinkable tactic? There had to be... right? But the fact that he couldn’t see anyone as upset as he was gave him the answer. Perhaps it’s the irony of it all: the Dallas Police Department that is lauded for their community policing, the bombing murder of a black man by the police, after his murdering 5 white officers at a Black Lives Matter demonstration. Then an African American author interviewed by a reporter came on the TV to talk about how police have been killing black people for years while white Americans have just sat back and didn’t care... his ironic hate speech was lost in the din in Bubbie’s head. He was still trying to get his head around the fact that the police blew up a suspect, albeit a murder suspect. They made themselves judge, jury, and executioner via a bomb, circumventing the law and the Constitution of the United States of America. A citizen's right to a trial by a jury of one's peers in a criminal prosecution is guaranteed by the sixth amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The right is extended to the states by the fourteenth amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America. In Bubbie’s view, the world’s view has become so twisted and distorted with ironic hypocrisy that outrage and shame are truly lost. Spending too much time with too much media has made the world comfortable with chaos. He’ll happily stay away from it. Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things only.